A Bit about Bart

Sustainable Faith’s School of Spiritual Direction trained and certified me as a spiritual director. Prior to beginning formal training, I received spiritual direction for two years through a spiritual director trained and certified by Lipscomb University, which I continue to this day. I tell folks inquiring about spiritual direction, “I wish I’d started meeting with a spiritual director twenty years sooner.” 

In addition to being a certified spiritual director, I have a double major B.S. in Bible and Elementary Teacher Education from Johnson Bible College (now Johnson University). I received an M.S. in Adult Education with a Concentration in New Testament from Indiana University; the concentration credits earned through Johnson University. 

I have over thirty-two years of experience as a preaching pastor within the independent Christian churches stream of the Restoration Movement. Four years were in a cross-cultural, bilingual setting outside the contiguous United States. My pastoral experience includes serving in rural, small town, and metropolitan settings. In June of 2024, I stepped aside from serving 24 years as the preaching pastor of my hometown church in order to devote more time to offering spiritual direction and serving as sabbatical advisor to individuals within church, para-church and other vocations. My spiritual direction practice and sabbatical advising is not limited to believers within the Restoration Movement. 

For four years, I taught in a PreK-Grade 8 Christian school in Puerto Rico. In Indiana, I served for four years as a regional program coordinator for a state scholarship support program for eighth through twelfth grade college-bound students. Following that, for two years I was also the first director of a new alternative public school for students with chronic academic failure and behavioral issues. 

For eight years I served on the board of directors of a campus ministry which involved two universities. I also served on the board of directors for a not-for-profit ministry committed to serving neglected, abused, and troubled youth, by providing homes and education to those who need hope in a desperate time in their lives.

My Christian parents raised my brother and me on a grain, hay, and livestock farm in southwestern Indiana. Within six weeks of graduating high school, I found myself in basic training with the United States Air Force. Intending to spend at least twenty years in the military, surprisingly after only four years I separated from the Air Force to attend Bible college.  

Within six months of graduating from high school, I married my high school sweetheart. We have three married children and six grandchildren with a seventh on the way. 

In addition to spending time with my family, friends and church, I enjoy walking and hiking in the country, all things analog ( especially fountain pens & bottled ink, wood cedar pencils, fine stationery and portable manual typewriters), Turkish coffee, a good cuppa Earl Grey tea, reading biographies, and John Buchan novels.